Good timber does not grow with ease:
The stronger wind, the stronger trees;
The further sky, the greater length;
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.
Douglas Malloch

Coming Events

April
April is National Garlic Month, National Grilled Cheese Month, and National Soft Pretzel Month
April 17 Mom dental appointment 9 am
April 18 No scouts or cub scouts Dad and Mom to temple.
April 19 National Garlic Day
Nano shopping, freezer clean, lab and lab and doctor day
Dad and Mom to temple
April 20 Friends to dinner
April 21 Happy 61st Birthday, Dad!!
Mom and Dad stake conference meeting at 7 pm
April 22 Happy Anniversary, Cameo and Ethan!!!
Mom and Dad stake conference. Mom has to be there at 8:30 for choir practice. Dad has Job Finding Class at 4 pm
April 24 Happy 38th Anniversary, Dad and Mom 9:28 am
Mom Pack Meeting 7 pm
April 25 National Zucchini Bread Day
Dad scouts 7 pm
April 26 or 27 Nano to doctor, store
April 28 National Strawberry Pie Day
Dad and Mom to ward service project 8 - 10 am
April 30 National Raisin Day
May
May is National Egg Month, National Asparagus Month, National Hamburger Month, and (my favorite) National Salad Month.
May 2 Mom Cub Scouts 6-7 pm
Dad scouts 7-8:30 pm
May 3 Nano shopping
May 4 National Orange Juice Day
National Star Wars Day - May the Fourth Be With You
Mom's baptism anniversary 5-4-74
May 5 Cinco de Mayo
May 6 Mom choir 3 pm
May 8 Coconut Cream Pie Day
May 9 National Butterscotch Brownie Day
Mom scouts 6-7pm
Dad scouts 7-8:30 pm
May 10 National Shrimp Day
Nano shopping
May 13 National Apple Pie Day
May 15 National Chocolate Chip Day (2nd favorite)
Dad dentist 2:30 pm
May 16 Mom scouts 6-7 pm
Dad scouts 7-8:30 pm
May 17 Happy Anniversary, Nathan and Jessica!!
Nano shopping
May 22 No pack Meetin
May 23 National Taffy Day
No den Meeting
May 24 National Asparagus Day
May 25 Happy Anniversary, Mike and Allison!
May 26 National Blueberry Pie Day
May 28 Memorial Day
May 30 Mom No Scouts
May 31 Happy Birthday, Mike!!
June
June is National Aquarium Month, National Dairy Month, National Papaya Month, and National Accordian Awareness Month
June 1-2 Thunderbird Hills Ward Cub Camp (mom not attending(
June 2 Fast Sunday
National Rocky Road Ice Cream Day
June 3 National Egg day
June 6 Mom cub scouts 6-7 pm
Dad scouts 7-8:30 pm
June 7 Nano shopping
June 8 Happy 15th Birthday, Adam!!!
June 9 Happy Birthday, Grandma!
June 10 National Germann Chocolated Cake Dau
June 12 National Peanut Butter Cookie Day

Pizza Party Planner

With the success of a recent party, it was determined that standards should be set regarding having parties here. We want to welcome those who want to use our house for a party, so we determined the following:

1. Event date needs to be reserved at least one month prior. Saturday is the best day. Sunday, we have late church so it is not possible.

2. Saturday - at least 7 days ahead - male head of household needs to come out alone and spend time with Dad cleaning up the yard and porch, putting tools away, mowing the yard, blowing leaves, etc. Dad will work outside while I work inside to get the house super cleaned. I will also make pizza dough for you...no charge...so I need to know the number of pizzas you plan. (Ethan and Cam made 11 pizzas for Kaylee's 2nd birthday)

3. Morning of event - male head of household needs to come over alone and do some final clean up of yard, bringing any chairs and tables, though we do have over 20 chairs and three small tables available for your use.

4. Bring all pizza toppings chopped and ready. Bring any food in addition. We have three drink dispensers for kool aid or lemonade and two small refrigerators you can use.

5. Clean up - we will help but please stay until all is put away, loaded up and cleaned up.

My Inspiration...For Now

"…Your Heavenly Father loves you—each of you. That love never changes. It is not influenced by your appearance, by your possessions, or by the amount of money you have in your bank account. It is not changed by your talents and abilities. It is simply there. It is there for you when you are sad or happy, discouraged or hopeful. God’s love is there for you whether or not you feel you deserve love. It is simply always there."

-Thomas S. Monson

“The sweetest experience I know in life is to feel a prompting and act upon it, and later find out that it was the fulfillment of someone’s prayer or someone’s need. And I always want the Lord to know that if He needs an errand run, Tom Monson will run that errand for Him.”

~Thomas S. Monson.

"Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved."

-Thomas S. Monson

“Noah waited 120 years before the predicted rains arrived. Abraham waited 25 years for a promised son. Joseph waited 14 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Job waited perhaps a lifetime, 60 to 70 years, for God’s justice.”

“God prepares leaders in a slow cooker, not in a microwave oven. More important than the awaited goal is the work God does in us while we wait. Waiting deepens and matures us, levels our perspective, and broadens our understanding. Tests of time determine whether we can endure seasons of seemingly unfruitful preparations, and indicate whether we can recognize and seize the opportunities that come our way.”

John C. Maxwell

"When you marry someone, you are entrusted with the heart of another human being. Whatever else your life's great mission will entail, loving and defending this heart next to you is part of your great quest."

John Eldredge

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."

Leonardo da Vinci

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."~Aristotle

" Life is a series of problems. Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one. The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort, God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do. That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.Painful moments, TRUST GOD.Every moment, THANK GOD.

Pastor Rick Warren"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

Family and Friends

Monday, August 13, 2012

Elder Rice Mail for August 12, 2012

In the package sorry i dont wanna sound like beggy
but can you add zero bars, tide to go, kimchi stains have destroyed some
shirts so I really need tide to go. Ya thats it. I love you oh and i
accidentally spilled my bottle of iodine on the floor. so im out sorry.
no mess though korean floors are like a rolled matt that cant
stain.

Family,Another week has blazed by. We do service at this
place and we feed older people food and once a month we go to a
"retirement" home and we give them
some food. Like last week was 팟빙수 pot bing soo its ice and has red beanns and fruit and
stuff on it. (from Mom: officialdefinition
- Patbingsu or patbingsoo (팥빙수) is a popular shaved icedessert in South Korea,
especially during the hot and humid summer season. This snack originally began
as ice shavings and sweetened azuki beans(known as pat, 팥).It was sold by street vendors. In contemporary culture,it has become a very
elaborate summer dessert, often topped with ice creamor frozen yogurt, sweetened
condensed milk, fruit syrups, various fruits suchas strawberries, kiwifruit,
and bananas, small pieces of teok (rice cake),chewy jelly bits, and cereal
flakes). Then we played games with them. Their favorite was bowling. It
was so awesome. They loved it. I was so cool. Normally, they just sit
and talk and i think they get bored, but we came and they were all
laughing and having fun. It was the best. But ya so the service place
put thing in the newspaper and guess who the picture they put in it
was....me the link to the website that the article is also on itwww.iksannews.com/Include/News/News_print.asp?tni_num=401204&local....it cuts off i hope I gave you enough to find
it. So ya I'm famous now,jkjk .

So Ethan and Cameo (Elder Rice's brother and
sister in law) are having a girlhahaha. That's cool.Will Ethan take her hunting or
will she hate it is myquestion?

So my companion is super awesome! We practice our
lessons in companionstudy and our lessons go so much better, and our
english class is somuch better. Before it was so boring now its fun.And
we invited some people to come that saw our English flyer and they came
and they will meet us again this week-super excited. My compainion loves
Rubiks cube and he is super cool. And ya awesome.

This week was cool a couple weeks ago, I was on a
bus, and when I goton, these non Korean, non American people were
looking at me and talking(creepy right). Then, I'm sitting on the bus and
some one comes behindme and says something I don't understand. I was
like "What? He was like"Oh sorry, I thought you were
Russian." I was like, "No I'm American." Thenwe talked for a while, and he is from Uzbekistan
working here, and heis super cool.Last Saturday, we played soccer with him and afriend. I'm hoping this can turn in to a great
finding and teachingopportunity.But its cool, I never met someone from
Uzbekistan
before.Now I have haha.

Our super awesome couple with the baptisimal
date... :( their "water broke" (term for baptism date falling
through) and wehaven't been able to meet
them. So we went and visited anyway and onlystayed like 20 mins and he had
to go teach English. There is an unseenforce trying to keep us from
meeting them, because there so awesomeAgggggggg.
But we will pray like crazy because we are on the Lord'sside and that is and always
will be the winning side.

So,todayI want to talk about How much Heavenly Father
Loves His children. People have a perception that He is mean. No He is
not! If He was, He wouldn't give us prophets and prayer and scriptures.
But there are rules that He has to follow: the laws of mercy and
justice. He gave us commandments to make us happy, and in Doctrine and
Covenants section 130,verse 20-21

20 There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven
before the foundationsof this world, upon which all blessings are
predicated— 21 And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is
by obedienceto that law upon which it is predicated.

It says for that for every command he gave us,
there is a specific blessing attached. So when get get blessed, it's
because we obeyed a commandment. How awesome. The scriptures tell us the
commandments and the blessings attached to them. He told us this so that
we can receive more blessings. Because He, like all good parents, wants
us to be happy and He wants to bless us a lot. There is another side to
this. There must needs be opposition in
all things. When we disobey, there is a punishment attached to it. But
Heavenly Father, in His infinite love, has provided a way to overcome
that. He gave us a Savior, and he suffered the immense pain of our
mistakes so we can be forgiven AND be happy again and return to Him
again someday.

There is a scripture in 3 Nephi 9:13 (Book of
Mormon),

He says, "... will ye not now return unto me,
and repent of your sins,and be converted, that I may heal you?"

When I read this, it's like He is pleading with us
saying, "Please repent.I can help you. I want to help you, but you need
to ask first." HeavenlyFather truly loves all of us so much. He wants us
to come back to Him.In fact, His only goal is for us to come back to
Him:"For behold, this is my work and my glory—to
bring to pass the immortalityand eternal elife of man." (Moses 1:39).

He has given us every tool and ability to come to
Him. I know that Heloves us and knows us all. I remember once, I had
the flu and it was rightbeforeChristmas,and the family had gone to aChristmasparty. I was layingon the couch and I felt horrible...the flu is the
worst...and I felt likeHeavenly Father didn't care about me. Then I
prayed and asked if Heloved me. and I sang the Primary song
"Heavenly Father are you reallythere"

LDS Primary Song "A Child's Prayer"

Heavenly Father, are you really thereAnd do you hear and answer every child's prayer?Some say that heaven is far awayBut I feel it close around me as I pray.

Heavenly Father, I remember now,Something that Jesus told disciples long ago."Suffer the children to come to me..."Father, in prayer I'm coming now to thee.

Pray, He is there.Speak, He is listening.You are His child. His love now surrounds you.He hears your prayer. He loves the children."Of such is the kingdom...the kingdom of
heaven."

and I felt the the most power comforting feeling
come over meand I knew that He loved me and was watching over
me.

I'm so excited that Brother Huesing went to the
temple. So amazing.He is so awesome. I bet Elder Beaston would be so
happy to see him rightnow. I loved hearing Brother Huessing's testimony
He knew it was trueand he saw the great blessing that comes from
serving our HeavenlyFather. That’s so amazing.

Also I'm sorry to hear about Brother Stone. He was
a great person. Iloved most when he taught us his testimony. He
talked about lifeoutside the church and how much happier life is in
the church. Hesaid how all the worldly things that look
cool...he said they're not.He said that true happiness comes from the Gospel.
I remember he wouldbear this firm testimony in the lessons he taught
us and I loved that.I remember he also told us about getting an
education and really toldus the blessings of working hard in high school
and he told us to goon a mission and told all the blessings his son
had received fromit. I could tell he really loved us and wanted to
help us be good.

Well this is it. I love you family. Be safe send
me cookies....Love youLove Elder Rice

Pictures:That’s me and my companion and our English flyer
picture. and the otherpic is the newspaper article.

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A Little About Us...

Our story began at Phoenix College Institute of Religion. I was in a scripture class, when a voice behind me answered a question Brother Johnson had asked. There was something about that voice. Now, don't be foolish enough to think that there were bells ringing and birds singing. It took another year, each of us being engaged to someone else, to see that we were meant for each other.

We married in the Mesa Arizona Temple in April of 1980. Our family grew and grew. We are blessed to have six wonderful children: Allison, married to Mike, and Adam, Grace, Joshua, and Sam, happy in Las Vegas; Ethan, married to Cameo, and Kaylee and Wade, happy in Georgia; Doran, married to Amber, with Kelsie and Kooper, and Charles, who returned to Heavenly Father; Morgan and his sweetheart Christy; Kayty; and Nathan married to Jessica and Annalee and Elisabeth, learning in college in Idaho. . We are a forever family. There will be NO empty chairs at our table!

Our blog will, hopefully, give you a taste of what is the Rice family. Join in the fun, excitement, challenge, and joy.